Robert J: I guess my gripe is people no longer knowing the value of money.

As a concept, if you earn 100 pounds, dollars, whatever, and are paid in actual notes, spending it is almost painful, counting them out, seeing them diminish. When its just the flourish of a card and bipbipbipbip there's my code, it's a concept... Its no longer "real".

And anyhow, who says one hour of what I do is worth more than one hour of what he or she does either?

Or that we really need all this damned stuff that clutters up our oversized houses where we learn to live selfishly in our own bubble...

It's all screwed up to me, and designed to keep Mr average under the cosh. Hence why so many are encouraged to borrow to pay for education... That starts the rot...

Matt Corby: Supply and demand says how much your work is worth vs someone else's work, that's what decides.

You do something a lot of people want but don't produce a lot? That dictates the price being higher. You make a lot of something not a lot of people want? You have to sell it cheap.

Paying for education makes sense because, well as I said, your country is borrowing against future earnings of your children, so if your kids are numbskulls they won't be able to keep the promise to repay the debt. QED.

The difference is that Mr. Average has the ability in a free country to choose to remain "Mr. Average under the cosh" or break the mould and become more than the sum of his or her parts, something some people never get the chance to do.

I'm not saying it's great, or right, but until we invent replicators a la star trek and eradicate human poverty and basically have infinite energy produced from maintainable sources this will continue to happen, and exploitation of this system will continue too. It sucks, but it's the best we have, and we should definitely aim to change it in every good way possible.

Also I agree about the dumb stuff cluttering up our houses. Pointless tat never helped anyone, and the continual churn of packaged products and useless gadgets sets my teeth on edge btw.